Andrew Baldock

Nuffield Australia 2015 Scholarship winner

Andrew Baldock, from Kimba in South Australia, received a Nuffield Scholarship supported by Grain Growers Limited. He investigated building the farm enterprise to accommodate a growing family in a changing business environment.

Andrew is responsible for the cropping and grain marketing side of his family’s mixed cropping and livestock farming operation. Farming with his wife Dale, parents Jeff and Jenny and brother Mark with his wife Libby, the Baldock family predominantly focus on wheat in the 5900-hectare cropping program, with barley, oats, canola, lupins, peas, vetch and medic pasture filling out the rotation. They also run a self-replacing Merino flock with a percentage of ewes mated to x-bred rams.

Andrew says with multiple siblings wanting to be involved in the family farm, they have a need to expand the business to support growing families.

“I wanted to investigate how various businesses around the globe in similar positions have approached this scenario.

In particular I focused on options such as growing the family business through outside investment, and the viability of diversification and value-adding options in our region,” he says.

To achieve these research goals, Andrew visited Canada, USA, UK, New Zealand, Russia and Asia.